Deepika Kumari completed a hat-trick of gold medals at the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Paris on Sunday after winning the women’s individual recurve event.
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Deepika Kumari completed a historic hat-trick of gold medals at the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Paris on Sunday. Indian archers stole the limelight by winning four of the five gold medals at stake. Arjun Munda, the President of the Archery Association of India was full of praise for the archers. He believed that the setback created by India Women not qualifying for Tokyo Olympics was made up by the performance on Sunday. The Asian giants became the second nation after Korea to win three gold medals at a world cup in recurve archery.
“This is the best ever performance by the Indian archers. This is really encouraging and we hope the Indian archers repeat the performance at the Tokyo Olympics,” said Munda as quoted by AAI.
Deepika Kumari beat Russian Elina Osipova to win the individual gold medal. In the first set, the Indian emerged victorious by a 29 to 27 margin. She further followed it up by shooting 29 to 28 to win the second set leading by 4-0. Deepika maintained the dominance in the third round as she reigned supreme by a 9-9-10 margin in comparison to 8-9-10 for Elina.
Atanu and Deepika became the first couple to win Mixed Gold during the event. The Netherlands started the final with a bang, winning the first set before the Indians finished the second set with a total of 28 points. Both Atanu and Deepika struck the bull’s eye from that point helping the Asian Giants draw level at halfway in the fourth set. The Dutch ultimately finished with 39 points, as Deepika got the 9 points which was needed to clinch the Gold medal.
The couple showed why they will be a team to be reckoned with in Tokyo by defeating Sjef Van Den Berg and Gaby Schloesser of the Netherlands, the winners of the previous leg of the international circuit in Lausanne, 5-3.
“We are made for each other, I think. That’s why we are married. On the grounds, we are not a couple. We are competitors. We motivate each other, boost each other, support each other and win together. It’s amazing,” said Das.
Both the Indian team and Mexican side delivered a fine start, making their presence felt with fine performances. The Mexicans scored 57 points after their six shots, with Deepika delivering a bull’s eye to help the Indians draw the first set. She further followed it up with another fine performance in the second set, helping India win the second set. Not content with this, Deepika further mustered a 10 pointer needed to secure the Gold in the third set, helping her team emerge victorious.
Indian compound archer Abhishek Verma achieved a truly exceptional feat on Saturday as he beat world number 5 Kris Schaff to bag the gold medal at the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Paris. That made him the first man to win two World Cup gold medals in individual compound archery. Verma’s victory comes two months after the Indian team was barred from boarding the flight to Guatemala City after a false positive COVID-19 report for the coach.
The final was a nail-biting encounter as both Verma and American heavyweight Kris Schaff dropped only two points each to get tied at 148 points. As the match went to a shootout, Verma remained calm and composed going on to seal the gold medal following a magnificent 10-9 victory over the American. He had a perfect score at the shootout.
